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Vets' underwater treasure is ease, healing

By Jack Minch, jminch@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
08/18/2014 01:04:46 PM EDT

Angelo Naticchioni of Townsend is an Iraq war veteran who took part in Operation: Blue Pride's program teaching veterans how to scuba-dive. Naticchioni took his certification dive off Pomano Beach, Fla., during Memorial Day weekend. COURTESY PHOTO

"I was in a bad accident due to being in the military, but when you are in the water, you more or less have no injuries," the Townsend resident said. "Because you are weightless."

Naticchioni spent eight years in the National Guard, including six years active service, and served in Iraq.

He came home from Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and tinnitus, then took his discharge in 2008 and continued his career working for the railroad.

A couple of his Army buddies told him about Operation: Blue Pride, a nonprofit formed by conservationists about three years ago to help veterans find peace of mind and body through scuba diving, all while raising awareness of the dangers sharks face.

"It was symbiotic -- they were helping the sharks and the sharks were helping the veterans," said Boston attorney Nancy Grodberg, who started OBP's Boston chapter.

Grodberg was looking for charitable work to help veterans when she found OBP through an Internet search.

"I've had a lot of opportunities here in the United States, and I know I only have those because our veterans have done what they have done, and I'm very grateful for that," Grodberg said. "I want to give back, and this is a way to give back."

Grodberg has been a certified diver for 10-plus years and has been diving in New England for three years, so when she came across OBP, she knew it was a good fit for her.

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She got East Coast Divers of Brookline to teach veterans how to dive and arranged to use the pool at Boston University's Walter Brown Arena for instruction before taking students on their first ocean dives.

Naticchioni shared the information about OBP with a friend, Leominster firefighter Armin Keidel.

Keidel graduated from Leominster High School and enlisted in the National Guard in 2002. He has been a firefighter since April 2007. He was discharged from the Army in 2010.

During his time in the Army, he deployed to Guantanamo Bay, then to a humanitarian mission following Hurricane Katrina and then to Baghdad, where he served on a security detail.

"I was there for the incident when Blackwater got in trouble," Keidel said.

Naticchioni was certified in Grodberg's first class on Memorial Day weekend. Keidel earned his certification last Sunday.

"Angelo and I are already talking about where we want to go diving," Keidel said.

To earn their certification, East Coast holds two classroom sessions followed by six pool sessions before two days of ocean dives which are usually at Cape Ann.

The Massachusetts chapter of OBP took a group of veterans, including Naticchioni, diving off Pompano Beach, Fla., for their ocean dives, where they saw stingrays and tortoises.

Naticchioni was amazed by the sight.

"It was incredible, it was like 4 feet wide, it was huge," he said of a stingray. "I've seen a Goliath grouper, which is the size of a VW Bug. We've come across eels, crabs, all sorts of stuff. The life under the water is a whole other world."

Naticchioni admitted it's an adjustment going diving and realizing he's part of the food chain instead of being at the top.

Sue Chen, the CEO of a medical-equipment company in Los Angeles, teamed with Floridian filmmakers Jim Abernethy, Shawn Heinrichs and George Schellenger to found OBP.

Chen talked to Heinrichs and Schellenger about combining their shared passions for conservation with her work in the medical field to help veterans returning from war.

The group formed in the summer of 2012 and took their first three veterans diving that September.

"Richard Branson was so moved by what we were doing that he dropped what he was doing, flew to the Bahamas and joined us for his first-ever shark dive," Chen said.

Veterans are people of honor and dedication who loved their country enough to sacrifice their bodies and minds, so they can redirect that honor and dedication to advocate for sharks, she said.

"The reality is, if we can't protect our oceans, everything they fought for won't be around," Chen said. "If we destroy the oceans, we can't survive on the planet, and there is no backup plan."

Sharks are misunderstood and are vital links to ocean health, but they are being hunted to near extinction in cruel ways, such as finning, she said. Finning is when a shark is caught and its fins are cut off before being released back into the ocean, where they die painfully and slowly. Fishermen kill 75 million to 100 million sharks a year through finning, Chen said.

"What we do to sharks, if we did that to dogs, people would freak out," Chen said.

An average of five people are killed worldwide every year by sharks, but last year 13 people died from vending machines falling on them and an average of 2,900 people are killed by hippos every year, she said.

Chen loves the roles sharks play in the ecosystem which includes eating dead, dying or diseased undersea animals.

"Second, the reason I like sharks so much is they are so freaking cool," Chen said, adding that they can smell anything in the water and swim up to 60 mph.

"Sharks are an apex predator and have been on our planet 450 million years keeping our oceans pure," Chen said.

Chen said she judges OBP's success one veteran at a time.

She recalled a student in the Boston class whose girlfriend said nothing had helped him heal his heart, body and mind until the scuba diving.

"Enough said," Chen said. "That's success to me, one veteran at a time."

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